His Twin Baby Surprise

Maureen waited while Lisa unlocked the door and held it open so she could precede her into the kitchen.

Once they were inside and Lisa had flipped on the light in the kitchen, she was able to get a better look at her mother. Maureen was examining the room, her mouth open in awe.

There was no denying who Maureen’s parents were. She had Grandma Lily’s dark blue eyes, which Lisa had also inherited, and her face was square-shaped like Grandpa Wesley’s. Her short dark hair was touched with gray and her face was free of makeup. Lisa thought she appeared drawn and thin, but she saw her mother so infrequently, she couldn’t be sure.

She attempted to see the kitchen as her mother did. It had been completely gutted, and where piles of books, boxes of odds and ends, and other detritus had once made it impossible to move without the danger of injury, the simplest of hickory cabinets, white-tiled countertops and stainless-steel appliances had been installed. A row of glass jars filled with rice, pasta and beans was the only item on the counter. A couple of antique signs advertising long-vanished brands of ice cream hung on the wall over the breakfast nook. The cozy little corner held a small wooden table and two chairs Carly had found and refurbished for her. Lace curtains on the east-facing windows let the sunshine in every morning, brightening the whole room.

Maureen pointed to the hardwood floor that gleamed a dark honey color. “Was this underneath that nasty old green tile?”

“Yes, quarter-sawn maple.”

“Unbelievable.” Maureen shook her head, moved into the small dining room and marveled at the polished mahogany table and chairs. “I’ve never seen the top of that table in my life.”

“Me, neither. I grew up thinking the natural color of the wood was nasty gray. Turns out that it was grime all along.”

Maureen answered with a pained look. “I remember. It’s beautiful now.”

“My friend Carly Joslin refinished it for me.”

And so it went throughout the remainder of the house—living room, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. As they moved through the house, Lisa cast surreptitious glances at Maureen, who now carried her coat over her arm. She thought her mother looked thinner than she had when in Chicago, and fragile, as if she’d been sick. But for all she knew, Maureen’s skin always had that paleness. Lisa doubted that she’d always worn such baggy clothes, though.

They ended up back in the living room. The floors had been stripped and refinished so that the wood gleamed. The walls had been painted a restful shade of soft cream and the built-in bookcases on each side of the fireplace had new, unbroken glass in the doors. Best of all, there were only a few cherished items on the shelves and on the mantel over the fireplace, including the one good photograph she had of Lily and Wesley Thomas. It had been taken in the sixties, when they were newly married and anything seemed possible.

Maureen stopped and turned to her, tears filling her eyes, her lips trembling.

“What did you do with it all?” she asked. She waved a hand. “The junk, the garbage, the years of crud that was more important to them than—” Her head slumped forward and she lifted a hand to her eyes. She hunched her spine as if weighed down by crippling sorrow.

Taken aback and filled with pity at Maureen’s distress, Lisa’s natural instinct was to draw her mother into a hug, but the defensiveness of her shoulders made her stop. Instead she stammered out the same thing she’d said before. “Sold it, tossed it...a bunch of people helped me and—”

“How long did it take?” The words seemed to be wrenched from Maureen.

“Six months and then another two to renovate the house. I’d had an apartment of my own until they got sick and I moved back in to care for them, but when we started the cleanup, I lived with my friend Carly until it was done.” She fell silent. Maureen couldn’t possibly be interested in her living arrangements while Rich Richmond’s construction firm had finished the renovations. Nor would she be interested in hearing of the emotional support she’d needed after losing the ones who had raised her within weeks of each other, and when she’d sorted through mountains and hills and piles of the worthless junk they had spent more than fifty years collecting.

A wave of nausea rose in her throat and she had to say, “Excuse me,” and hurry to her en suite bathroom where she couldn’t be heard. She threw up, rinsed her mouth and once again stood looking at her devastated face and stunned expression in the mirror.

This had been a day of shocks, and she had the horrible feeling they weren’t over yet.

“The hits just keep coming,” she murmured, rubbing her sore hip.

Her thoughts went to Ben and the shock he must have felt when she’d told him about the baby. The surprise of having Maureen show up made her a little more sympathetic about Ben’s reaction. But not much, she thought, pushing away from the sink and returning to the room where Maureen waited.

The older woman looked as though she had pulled herself together. She glanced up from where she’d seated herself on the sofa. “Are you all right?” she asked, her gaze swiftly taking in Lisa’s appearance from head to toe.

“Yes. I’m fine.” Lisa provided the automatic reassurance, although she didn’t feel fine. She took a chair opposite the sofa.

Maureen looked around, her face still dazed. “It’s so clean and beautiful. I can’t believe all you’ve accomplished.” She paused and then she met Lisa’s gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t call first. I—” She shook her head again. “Honestly, it didn’t occur to me that you still lived here. When I drove up, I thought I was in the wrong place. I didn’t have to drive through head-high dead weeds or dodge a row of engine parts and a dozen old transmissions.”

“And a pile of wheels and axles,” Lisa added. “Grandpa started moving those to the front of the house in the year before he died. Not sure why he didn’t display that particular collection sooner.”

“It’s impossible to know how his mind worked.” Maureen’s lips tightened and she looked away, her attention going to a small brass statue of a pair of praying hands that stood on the end table. Reaching out, she ran her hand over it. Lisa had found it in the bottom of a box of papers, its surface unmarked from having been buried for half a century. The words Lily and Violet had been scratched on the bottom in childish carving, so it must have belonged to one of them as a child. “There was so much of it...everywhere, strangling everything.”

Lisa couldn’t tell if she was experiencing grief, sorrow, disgust or some other emotion. She didn’t know her mother well enough to read her expressions, know her thoughts. Sadness, fueled by her tiredness and expectant-mother hormones, had tears springing into her eyes. She quickly wiped them away and stood to go to the kitchen. Forcing normalcy into her voice she said, “I’ve got to get something to eat. Would you like to join me?”

“Yes, please.” Maureen sounded surprised at the invitation. “Do you need some help?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got it.” Lisa waved a hand. “Look around some more if you want to.”

Happy to escape and collect her thoughts, she went into the kitchen and pulled out a chicken stew she’d made on Sunday. She poured it into a pan and, while it heated, made a salad. The whole time her mind was frantically racing, trying to figure out why her mother was there. Maureen had only visited a handful of times since she’d left at the age of sixteen. She had never spent the night.

Lisa paused in her preparations, staring down at her hands. Did Maureen expect to stay the night? Or longer? If so, why?

She set the table and called Maureen in.

“Oh, this smells wonderful,” her mother said as she sat. “Did Mom teach you how to cook?”

“A few things. Mostly I taught myself.”

Maureen gave her a thoughtful look. “Forgive me, Lisa, but I have to ask. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. After they...died, why did you stay here? Fix it up? You could have simply walked away.” She gave a laugh. “Or set a match to the whole thing.”

Lisa’s lips wavered in a smile. “Don’t think I didn’t consider that, but arson is against the law.”

She hadn’t answered the question but Maureen didn’t push her. In truth, Lisa had cleaned up and refurbished the place because she was hoping it would give her some answers about why her grandparents had been the way they were. Why Maureen had left. She hadn’t found any of those things and had frequently questioned her own sanity while sorting through and disposing of the mess. She didn’t want to say such a thing quite yet, though.

She knew that if Maureen felt free to ask why she’d stayed, Lisa could ask why her mother had left. She didn’t want to hear the answer tonight, though. She’d had enough.

Dinner conversation was awkward. Lisa knew it was because the only things they had in common were the unlivable home in which they’d grown up and the two people whose lives could best be described as dysfunctional.

As they were finishing their meal, Lisa made them each a cup of tea. Maureen took a sip, then played with the handle of the cup. She jerked in a deep breath and said, “Dinner was delicious. Thank you. I guess you want to know why I’m here.”

“Yes, I’d like to know. I mean, if you want to talk about it.” Lisa lifted her hands helplessly. “I’ve only seen you a few times. This past hour has been the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”

“I know.” Maureen looked down at her hands, which Lisa could see were scarred and work-worn. “Did you ever read a poem by Robert Frost that has a line in it about home being where they have to take you in when you go there?”

“Well, yes. I studied American literature. It’s called ‘Death of the Hired Man.’” Lisa drew in a sharp breath. “Maureen, are you dying?”

Horror flooded Maureen’s face. “No, no. I’m sorry. I would never burden you with that. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I’m saying this all wrong. I’m not dying, but I’ve been sick with an antibiotic-resistant infection. Even though I had health insurance, the hospital bills and treatments wiped out most of my savings. I lost my job and my apartment. I had to get away from the weather in Illinois, so I thought I’d come here.” Shame filled her face. “I know it’s a lot to ask. You probably think I’ve got a lot of nerve.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Lisa admitted. Her brain and her emotions were on overload. She desperately wanted to go to bed and pull the covers over her head. She could see that Maureen was as exhausted as she was, her eyes drooping and her face set in grim lines.

“When I drove up tonight, I planned to ask the new owners of this place if they knew where you lived, but then you came home—”

“And...you want to stay?”

“Only a little while, until I can find a job, get back on my feet.” She gave Lisa a desperate look. “I promise it’ll only be for a little while.”

Through the swirl of her emotions, she mostly felt curious. “Why, after all these years?”

“Several reasons, but mostly unresolved history, and I decided I had to return to my hometown and quit being a coward. When I...ran away, I went to Aunt Violet in Chicago.”

“Yes, Grandma told me.”

“Before she died, she told me I had to come here, make things right, or I would never have peace.” She tilted her head and gave another little shrug.

With a start, Lisa remembered that her grandfather had made exactly that gesture. Lisa’s heart ached. She had been dealing with her own problems all day, but she knew this woman had a much bigger one. Lisa might be expecting a baby that would change her life in ways she couldn’t yet imagine, but she had security, friends and her own business. Maureen had nothing except a daughter she barely knew—and consequences for actions she’d taken thirty-three years ago.

Lisa wanted to know more, much more, about Maureen’s motivations, reasons, life, but she couldn’t handle one more thing tonight.

In her mind Lisa could hear Gemma and Carly warning her to be careful, that it might all be a scam, but she met Maureen’s hesitant gaze and said, “Of course you can stay. You can have my old room—your old room, or the smallest bedroom, whichever one you want.”

CHAPTER FOUR

IN SPITE OF the chilly wind that was swirling dead leaves around his boots, Ben stood jacketless and bareheaded by the pasture fence and stared out at his mustangs. He had enough land to support a herd twice this size, but right now this was as much as he could handle.

He was waiting for Zach, Jason Littletrees’s cousin, who would teach Ben about the horses and manage the herd.

Jason had suggested Ben should learn all he could while Zach was on the Riverbend. Zach never stayed in one place too long, so when Zach moved on, Ben would know what to look for in a new ranch manager. Ben hadn’t planned to hire another one. He’d hoped Zach would be a permanent fixture. However he’d called around and learned that Zach was the best at what he did, and that was what Ben wanted. He would deal with a new hire when the time came.

In the meantime he was brooding about the bombshell Lisa had dropped on him the day before. He’d had twenty-four hours to get used to the idea of being a dad, and he still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He hunched his shoulders against the cutting breeze and thought back over the conversation they’d had the day before.

Everything he’d told Lisa was true. He’d never intended to be a father or thought it would be forced on him. On the other hand, Lisa probably hadn’t intended to be a mother, either, at least not right now. He knew he felt reluctant about his impending fatherhood, but he didn’t know how Lisa felt about motherhood. She was adamant about keeping the baby, but he didn’t know how she actually felt about it. He didn’t really know her.

They’d been friends when they were kids, at least until the infamous jailbreak, after which his parents had refused to let him have anything to do with her. It still made him chuckle to remember that her plan had been for them to make their way to where the Canadian River ran through Oklahoma and follow it to Canada. The Canadian River would have taken them nowhere near Canada, but they’d had no chance to find out because his dad and Sheriff Jepson had tracked them down only a few blocks from the jail.

His punishment had been to apologize to Mrs. Crabtree, weed her garden all summer and burn the slingshot that had landed him in jail in the first place. He’d been so busy, there’d been no chance of getting into any trouble, or even seeing much of his friends until fall. He obeyed his parents’ orders to avoid Lisa and it had become a habit over the years. Until last December in Chicago.

He walked along the fence line, favoring his right knee, an old football injury that stiffened up on him in the cold. What did he actually know about Lisa, the woman who was going to be the mother of his child? They had graduated from high school together and he’d gone straight to play for the Sooners. Oh, and got a business degree while he was at it.

Lisa was smart, near the top of their class, but she’d gone to the community college, taken care of her grandparents on that landfill they’d called a ranch and had become a whiz at real estate, even had her own business. He felt a spark of pride in all she’d done for herself. It was good to know their child wouldn’t lack for ambition.

What would the kid lack, though? What did a baby need beyond the tangible items like food, clothing, a crib, diapers? He had no idea.

At the sound of someone pulling into his lane, he turned around to see an older pickup with shining silver paint pulling an ancient Airstream. It was coming his way.

It must be Zach.

Ben had offered to let him live in the house, but the horseman had said he would bring his own house with him. Ben knew that itinerant ranch and rodeo workers often had their own motor homes or mobile homes, but he’d never before seen one like this. It was old, but its top-of-the-line pedigree showed in the Airstream’s clean lines and shining silver skin. It had either been well cared for or beautifully restored, and so had the pickup, which he could now see was a 1950s-era Ford F-1 painted silver to match the Airstream.

Ben knew the rig must get a lot of attention as it rolled down the road.

Zach deftly pulled his truck to a stop, reversed, and maneuvered his home into place beside the rambling ranch house. The shining truck and trailer only served to make Ben’s place look even worse. Before he could walk over to greet his new employee, he heard another vehicle on the road and glanced back to see three more cars following Zach onto Riverbend Ranch.

Amazed, Ben saw that all three of them were classic cars, built in the days when Detroit really knew what it was doing—a 1955 turquoise-and-white Chevrolet Bel Air, a 1959 Chevrolet Impala with sparkling black paint and distinctive tail fins, and a root beer–colored 1966 Ford Mustang convertible that made Ben’s heart pound. All three cars were driven by women who stepped out and walked toward Ben, hands outstretched in greeting.

They were dressed in tight jeans and snug tops that showed off their figures. Ben had been carefully taught by his mother to never ask a woman’s age, but he guessed these three to be well past fifty.

“Hello. Ben, isn’t it?” the petite, blonds driver of the Mustang said as she took his hand. “I’m Denise Clark, a friend of Zach’s.” She removed the scarf that had been protecting her hair from the wind and turned to wiggle her fingers at Zach, who was walking over to join them.

“Um, hello. I’m, uh, happy to meet you, Ms. Clark.” Before Ben could say any more, Denise was elbowed aside by the other two women, who Ben could now see were twins. Denise stumbled back and gave them a dark look.

“Hi,” one of them said. “I’m Ginger Afton, and this is my sister, Cinnamon Vale.”

Ben nodded. Ginger and Cinnamon? Really? “Uh, welcome to Riverbend Ranch.”

Zach joined them right then and introduced himself, giving Ben’s hand a bone-shattering shake that reverberated up his arm and rattled his teeth.

“Glad to meet you, Ben, and glad to be back in the area where I can work with some Choctaw ponies.”

“He’s been in Arkansas,” Denise breathed, a wistful tone in her voice. “That’s where we met him. In Fayetteville. At a classic car show.”

That explained the vehicles, if nothing else, Ben thought. “That’s wonderful, ladies.”

The three sighed in unison as Cinnamon—or was it Ginger?—said, “Happiest day of our lives.”

Nodding, Ben recalled that Fayetteville was in the northern part of the state, almost a four-hour drive away. Looking from one to the other of the women, he tried to decipher their expressions and finally decided it could only be described as love struck.

“Oh, now, you ladies are being too nice. Meeting ol’ Zach couldn’t have been the best day.” His expression said he expected them to dispute that, which they did with declarations of how much they would miss him.

“We came along to make sure he arrived safely,” the other twin offered. “We would be heartbroken if anything happened to him.”

All three women sighed and Zach shrugged one shoulder and ducked his head modestly as he removed his cowboy hat, revealing a shock of thick, black hair touched with gray. He held his hat over his heart as he said, “My guardian angels.”

Who is this guy? Ben wondered, returning his attention to Zach, who was smiling at the three women with a fond expression. The guy was fifty if he was a day, possessed of a hawk-like nose that had been broken at least once and deep-set eyes that were so black and intense it was impossible to distinguish the pupil from the iris. He had a winning smile but was missing a bicuspid on the top right side. Maybe that added to his appeal to these women.

Obviously looks weren’t everything, Ben decided. Zach had some admirers.

“It’s wonderful that he’s got, um, friends like you ladies,” Ben said in response, though he knew none was expected. He could have disappeared into thin air and none of his guests would have noticed. He wondered fleetingly why the three of them hadn’t ridden together, but when he saw the snapping, side-eyed looks they were giving each other, he figured there had been danger of one of them pushing the other two out of the vehicle as they followed Zach to Reston.

The Choctaw charmer turned a smile on the ladies. It was so full of sweetness and gratitude they all seemed to blush in unison. “You girls made my stay in Fayetteville a visit straight to heaven. I hope you come back and visit me again real soon.”

“I will,” they said, once again passing a challenging glare between them.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said, beginning to walk his three admirers to their cars.

“Now, Zachie, don’t forget to call me. You’ve got my number,” Denise said. “I put it in your phone myself. It’s listed under my name and also under Sexy Lady.”

Ginger and Cinnamon snorted in disdain, but Zach said, “I sure do have your number, honey. And you other two beautiful women, too.”

Gallantly, he opened the driver’s doors for each of them in turn, gave them a kiss on the cheek and then watched, his face full of regret, as they made the big turn in Ben’s driveway and started out for Fayetteville. Zach gave them a sad wave as they each pulled out, their arms stuck out the windows, hands flapping in goodbye as they went.

Ben had to admit it. The old guy had some moves. When the last car in line pulled out of sight, Zach turned to Ben, rubbed his hands together and said, “I’d like to go down and take a look at the horses as soon as I get my trailer hooked up to power and water. I’ve got a hot date tonight.”

He hurried to his Airstream as Ben gaped after him. Things just got a lot more interesting at Riverbend Ranch.

* * *

“YOUR MOTHER? YOU mean Maureen, right?” Carly asked, a slice of pizza suspended in front of her mouth. Slowly she returned it to the plate and sat staring at Lisa. Gemma appeared to be equally astounded.

In spite of husbands and family responsibilities, Gemma, Carly and Lisa had vowed to continue their Girls Night In at least once a month. Fortunately this one had fallen on the night after Maureen’s arrival, so Lisa had an excuse for delaying her return home. They had gathered around Carly’s dining room table to enjoy their feast of pizza, salad and soft drinks. Carly’s husband and son had gone to play cards with Nathan.

“That’s right. Showed up yesterday, out of the blue, asked to stay.” Lisa told her friends everything that had happened, including her talk with Ben.

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